The Red
by Butterscreen
Summary: The world seemed to weigh on his shoulders as he looked up to the night sky. A single plea that was answered by a mysterious force that changed him so utterly and completely that he couldn't even be considered human anymore. Maybe this was his punishment, or maybe it was his chance to change it all. Time travel. Rated T for gore. Previously Resonance Hiatus
1. Prayers

AN: I don't own anything but the plot line.

* * *

Kakashi Hatake knew what he wasn't. Despite what many ninja of Konoha thought about the 'genius ex-ANBU Copy Ninja' he was not as perfect as they thought that he was. Enemies and allies alike thought him to be one of the prime examples of the ideal ninja; strong, intelligent, mysterious, and most importantly loyal.

But Kakashi knew that he was always just a failure. Underneath his mask, he was undeniably, fatally human.

Because he wasn't good enough, his father killed himself. Because he wasn't wise enough, Obito was swallowed by the darkness. Because he wasn't strong enough, Rin slipped through his fingers. Because he wasn't fast enough, Minato-sensei and Kushina didn't escape the Kyuubi's wrath.

Sasuke defected when Kakashi failed to lead him down the right path and destroyed himself over his revenge. Sakura sacrificed her life to heal him when he lay on the battlefield in a pool of blood. Naruto fell saving the world when Kakashi couldn't. And Tsunade lost her will to live after seeing her beloved dead in Kakashi's arms and handed her title over to him.

Now there was nothing left. The ninja world was destroyed. The Hokage mountain was ground to dust and nothing but a desolate wasteland could be seen. The Fourth Great Ninja War had brought about the very apocalypse that it was trying to prevent.

Kakashi held the largest shard of the memorial stone he could find in his hand. The glistening obsidian was barely five centimeters long and it was thinner than his pinky, but it was the only thing left to hold onto. He pleaded with the gods to change something. He wasn't up to the task of outliving the people he loved. Enough was enough. He didn't want to be a survivor anymore.

And Kakashi knew that he had always been a survivor.

Clutching the shard so tightly that it dug into his palm and drew blood, he tilted his head towards the stars with his eyes closed in uncharacteristic prayer.

"Please." He said. "Give me another chance."

Unseen, a bright star shot across the night sky.

* * *

Kakashi stood in front of the large marble tablet that marked the last of his family. Even five years after, the memory was still burned in the inside of his eyelids and rang in his ears. It haunted his dreams and plagued his waking thoughts.

Kakashi was a genius. He knew it. He was the 'Thirteen-year-old genius Hatake' but he never felt like it. There was always place for improvement. Always a way to become a better Shinobi. He trained every day as hard as he could to become someone more than the son of The White Fang.

Because there had to be a way to break away from his father's legacy, a way to become the perfect Shinobi. He had to find the way to stop his heart from bleeding, or he would end up killing it altogether.

He had lived long enough as a failure. He couldn't do it anymore. Even five years hadn't been enough to encompass the guilt he had.

He would have to become more than human or die a failure. He had survived too long to not know how this would end.

The young Chūnin drew the White Fang from its holster on his back and gazed at the polished metal. Suddenly seeing the blade, a crimson light seemed to flash off of its edge and Kakashi dropped it as if it bit him. The scarlet glow felt all too real, and the boy knew then that he was slipping. He wouldn't admit it, but he needed help, or his mind would end up compensating. The depression would end up breaking him.

Gingerly he picked up the tantō and sheathed it. Scolding himself for letting his emotions get the better of him, Kakashi ruthlessly smothered the emptiness inside him and clung to the small bit of optimism he had long since buried within his heart. He wouldn't give up. Not yet.

Looking upwards towards the starry night sky, Kakashi fervently sent out a prayer.

"Please, I need another chance." He said as he closed his eyes and willed his wish into the sky. When he opened them, he saw nothing and turned and walked back to his apartment disappointed.

...But a shimmering star flew across the night sky.

* * *

Please review


	2. Awakening

AN: I do not own Naruto or any of the Narutoverse characters. Enjoy.

* * *

Kakashi felt funny. It wasn't that he felt off because there were no longer any living people in the area, it was a premonition of sorts; a hunch. His hunches never brought good things into his life. All of his hunches led to bad situations.

Despite this, the Rokudaime Hokage of the recently destroyed Leaf Village walked out of the outcropping of rock he used as a shelter and began wandering the area. He would search for survivors inside the wreckage of the villages he passed like he had come to do. He hoped to find someone, anyone, who had miraculously outlived the battle.

Someone who was a survivor.

* * *

Kakashi didn't want to wake up that morning. The emptiness of his mind beckoned his thoughts towards darker subjects. His limbs fiercely protested against any movement he attempted to make. But most of all, Kakashi had a bad feeling about today. His intuition was always eerily accurate and he had learned to trust it with his life.

Even knowing that, the thirteen year old sat up in his bed to begin his day. He would go and meet up with his team for the day's mission. With the war going on, everyone had little time to rest. He needed to prove himself so he could bear to move on to the next day, but to do that he would have to outlive the war.

He had to become a survivor.

* * *

Kakashi dug through the pile of rock repetitively. He had found a few bodies in this pile. Dog tags were fished out of bloody material and the names were carved into separate stones as markers. Some were from Suna, others were from Iwa, and he found two Kumo headbands in boneless piles of flesh.

He had long since become unaffected by the disturbing post-battle gore, and he was now able to still his mind when concerning the horribly disfigured dead.

The only thing he was unable to escape from was the stench.

Three days after the fighting had subsided, the corpses were beginning to rot in the late August sun. Countless bodies had been dug up and buried already, but the ones with nothing left to bury, like the two Kumo nins, he would just have to leave. The tags he found on those, he kept; they were grim reminders of how even the honored dead could have their existence, their memory reduced to nothing.

Before he could react, dizziness overcame his senses and he was falling, surrounded by a blinding light.

* * *

Kakashi ran through his katas slowly. The monotonous motions kept the feeling of terror that was scratching at the back of his mind diluted. Bad luck had assaulted him on his way to the training field and for the first time in his life, Kakashi was late. Not only that, but Obito had been early. He had been kicked out of the Uchiha compound.

Even so, Obito wouldn't and shouldn't have been early. Obito was never early. Kakashi knew this and he made sure to tell the dobe to be on time more often (more like every day) but only recently had he realized realized that Obito wasn't late just because of his own timekeeping problems.

The Uchiha's parents had been beating him.

The long sleeves and headgear, the pants and collar, they were all for hiding his bruises. At first he didn't want to believe it, but that was before Kakashi had smelled it on him. The scent of blood on him was almost overpowering. Depression must have been breaking him too, more than it was to Kakashi. Even if he was a dobe, and he was depressed, it didn't give him the right to indulge in self-harm.

A flash of light bloomed at the other end of the training field and a gut wrenching scream of pain shattered his train of thought. He heard panicked voices in the distance even before he began running. He knew something bad would happen soon.

* * *

Kakashi awoke from the strangest of dreams. He blinked blearily a few times as his vision refocused.

'Of course it was strange,' he thought as he gazed at his surroundings. 'I'm in Konoha hospital.' Overhead lights, whitewashed walls, , and the eerie smell of blood mixed with antiseptic all flooded his awakening senses.

Familiar voices pierced presently his hypersensitive ears as an argument outside his room made itself known. A small groan of pain escaped his lips and, when he heard it, his hand froze just before meeting his bandaged forehead. Kakashi knew that his voice didn't sound like that; soft and yielding, and the Konoha hospital was destroyed during the war. He blinked.

He shot up into sitting position with a gasp, ignoring the pain in his ribs and skull for the moment and he started to piece together the situation. He needed to find out what he was doing in a child's body seventeen years in the past. He shook with the effort and his head swam, but he managed to slide off of the bed and...

... fall flat on the floor.

As he struggled to stand, the reflective surface of the floor allowed him to gaze upon his physique in shock. The mask-less face sported a pair of bicolored eyes. Ash black and crimson red stared back as he regained his balance. He blinked again. His left eye was never NATURALLY red.

Now he was really confused.

His crash had notified his visitors of his conscious presence and a knock on the door broke Kakashi out of his stupor. He scrambled weakly back onto the white sheets, shut his left eye as a precaution, and covered his lower face with the fabric mask conveniently lying on the side table before answering with a whisper.

"Who's there?" The soft rasp came from his throat. The door to his room opened and three hauntingly familiar faces came into view. He couldn't stop himself from staring. It couldn't be.

"Feeling any better kid? You look just as pale as you did when we found you; like you've seen a ghost or something." The tall blonde joked. A sarcastic remark fought its way to his tongue but Kakashi ruthlessly bit it down as he thought. Hundreds of scenarios flashed though Kakashi's mind in an instant, each of which was more improbable than the last.

The chocolate haired girl came up to him and Kakashi tried to shrink away from her gaze and back under the hospital sheets. The memory of her death flashed in his mind and he cringed harshly. Kakashi's distress went dismissed by the three visitors as childish wariness as he fought his conflicting emotions. Instinct said that what he was seeing was real, but his mind screamed otherwise.

"It's okay," she said. "I'm just going to check your wounds. I won't hurt you. I promise." A hand of help was offered out to him and he glared at it suspiciously. He then tentatively reached out with a bare hand, flinching back lightning quick each time he saw her so much as twitch.

"I told you he wouldn't trust you." A third voice came from the right side of the room. Kakashi choked down a gasp and he retracted his limbs as close as he could to his center. A figure stood just three meters away at the room's entrance. Guilt, relief, and suspicion all fought for a grip on his heart.

The teen with jet black hair walked towards him with a frown, so much like the one he used to know and said, "The kid's definitely a Hatake.

* * *

Kakashi stood just outside the kid's room, thinking about how ridiculously coincidental just the child's existence was.

Soft silver locks and the shape of his eyes were so uncannily similar to his own and he knew from the bloodstained mask present on the child's face to the small stature of his body that they were related.

He didn't want to believe it, that his father had had an affair with an unknown woman, but blood never lies. And the chart was clenched in his left hand.

Kakashi grabbed the handle of the door and opened it. Everyone seemed to freeze in place when they saw him, including the kid. He then walked forward and unceremoniously dropped the stack of papers on the kid's bed.

Warily the boy eyed him, but when Kakashi reached out to grab the papers a small hand darted out of the white sheets and snatched up the graphs. The boy's single coal black eye darted along the page while his left remained shut, something Kakashi found interesting.

Finally the boy looked up from the papers and spoke.

"Hatake Kakashi?" He asked with a soft and innocent voice. Kakashi nodded slightly. The boy narrowed his eye and scanned the shinobi's body. The boy gave a sigh, like he was giving in to doing chores for a nagging mother.

"My name is... Hatake Kazu." His left eye was suddenly assaulted with a thousand images and a searing pain. A huge wave of guilt crashed into him and Kakashi stumbled backwards clutching his eye in pain.

Minato was instantly at his side and Rin and Obito fell into a battle stance. Kakashi crumpled to the floor shaking as the scenes played out in his head, things worse than his nightmares.

When the pain subsided, he opened his eyes, but the boy was gone.

AN: It begins.


	3. Rain

AN: I plan on making each chapter about 2000 words long now. So there will be definite length variations in chapters. I also don't own The Narutoverse.

* * *

The first place that Kakashi went to was the Memorial stone.

Finding out how he got to the time period could wait. Dealing with his younger self could wait. Being interrogated by the Hokage's ANBU could wait. Everything else could wait.

But his tears could not.

As he clumsily entered the clearing with his now awkwardly short limbs and chakra drained body, he fell to his knees in mental and physical exhaustion at the foot of the black stone and cried.

The years of pent up suffering, all twenty-nine of them, could not be held in the frail and inexperienced body he was in now. The cold mental walls had disappeared. The tempered steel will he once had vanished like he never had it in the first place.

Suddenly, his sobs intensified and he found himself biting his lip and choking on his own saliva while trying to keep his cries quiet and unnoticeable. Of course _his_ face had to show up the first time in ages Kakashi allowed himself to cry. It was only fitting. After everything that had happened to him, _he_ had still built Kakashi back up.

But now, the time when he needed to keep standing strong, Kakashi's legs gave out under him. His unemotional mask had shattered and his heart was breaking all over again. He was too weak to fix himself. And he hated himself for that.

"I'm... _so_ sorry." He whispered. "I'm _so_ sorry. It's all my fault. I'm _so_ sorry."

His apologies continued in broken sentences and he cried until he didn't have enough energy for a whimper.

Slowly, the agonizing seconds turned into minutes, then hours and Kakashi found himself lying in the grass as the clouds above him thundered loudly. Darkness began to creep into the clearing as the hidden sun signaled the end of day.

He wasn't sobbing anymore, but the tears still slid out of the corners of his eyes. The rain came, just a few scattered droplets here and there before pelting down on the landscape.

Kakashi just laid there numbly and waited, like he always did, for the pain to fade enough for him to move on.

* * *

By the time Kakashi had found the kid, he was already passed out, laying in the mud at the foot of the KIA monument. And of course, it was pouring rain outside.

He stood in front of the statue, at the boy's feet, waiting for him to get up. When he didn't, he sighed and felt a wave of nostalgia envelope him as he gazed at the black stone. Somehow, he knew that he had done this before. He had visited this very spot many times, he was sure, even when he never remembered it. A foggy list of names flowed through his head. Uchiha and Uzumaki were among them, engrained in his head as if he had carved them into the stone himself.

Kakashi shivered. In cold from the rain or in the discomfort of the feeling of condemning someone he knew to death, he didn't know. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he pulled the muddy boy onto his back and began to walk back to the hospital where Rin would surely be waiting.

The rain seemed to drain his conviction as memories began to surface. It was raining on _that_ day too. The day that he first found the crimson light of blood terrifying as it stained the fabric on the body beneath his fingers as he desperately tried to stem the flow.

So Kakashi walked at a slow but deliberate trudge. Lost in his thoughts, Comforting warmth returned to his core as the boy's body heat seeped through the rain soaked clothing of the boy's clothes.

Suddenly the boy twitched, arms circling around Kakashi's neck tightly. He nearly threw the kid off of him in surprise and astonishment, but when he noticed the kid's shivering and the weakness in his grip he relaxed a bit.

The boy's next words though, he made him stop in his tracks visibly tense.

"I'm _so_ sorry." Came the quiet trembling murmur. "I'm _so_ sorry. It's all my fault."

How many times had he himself uttered such words in front of that stone? How many times had he wished that his father would return to him? How many times had he waited all day by the stone, just to make sure that the pain would subside?

The rain dripped down his scalp as Kakashi stood frozen in the middle of the street. The kid must have lost his family too. An orphan who, like himself, must have watched them die.

'_Troublesome kid_.' Kakashi thought. '_Making me feel so... emotional._'

Suddenly the rain ceased and the clouds blocking the sky cleared to show thousands of twinkling stars. Kakashi looked up at the sky in relief. They would both suffer colds if they stayed in the rain any longer. Then he blinked, surprised at his own thoughts.

Somehow, from the very depths of his hardened heart, Kakashi found himself caring for the boy. Unwittingly stumbling into his life, Kazu had done something no one had since his father died.

He had made him open his heart, even if it was just a crack.

A bright light caught his attention in the sky. It streaked across the dark sea with a trail of light flaring behind it. A shooting star.

Kakashi blinked again gasping slightly, remembering his earlier prayer, then shook his head feeling stupid. '_It was just a coincidence._' He thought, thinking of the wish he made the day before. '_Wishes don't really come true._'

Kazu sneezed into Kakashi's hair and awoke with a jolt, practically jumping off of Kakashi's back. Kakashi immediately clamped down on his feelings and willed his face into a cold unfeeling mask.

"That's what you get for falling asleep in the rain." Kakashi scolded the kid. "You'll probably have a cold tomorrow. Don't you know how to take care of yourself?" He said eyeing the boy on his back. He still kept his left eye closed.

The boy flushed slightly, the tips of his ears turning pink, and he looked away with what Kakashi thought was a pout behind his mask. But Kakashi could feel him shivering. He mentally sighed.

"You'll have to stay at my place for now since it would be difficult to interrogate someone with pneumonia." Kakashi mused as he calculated the time. "Just know that you will go straight back to the hospital in the morning, okay? Injury is one thing but a cold would hinder your recovery. I can't believe you were stupid enough to stay out in the rain like that." He said as turned his gaze back to the road and began walking towards his apartment.

Kazu clung to Kakashi's shoulders with cold clammy hands as the two soaking boys continued on their way in silence.

Kazu sneezed again and muttered something about 'rain' and 'wet cat' under his breath.

"See, now you have a cold." Kakashi chided.

Kazu sniffed and after a few moments retorted softly, "You'll catch one too."

"Che, yeah right. Hatakes don't get colds." He scoffed impishly, a smile tugging at his lips.

"That's what you say _now_." Muttered the kid, darkly.

The pair traveled along in the moonlight in the empty market streets of Konoha's commercial section. A few restaurants were open, but no one had stayed outside when the rain came. Not even the normal drunks were out and about. Only the stars twinkled as company for the two.

Suddenly Kakashi sneezed.

Both boys were silent for a moment.

"I _told_ you so." The kid whispered playfully in his ear.

"Shut up." Was his reply.

* * *

"Kazu, get up. It's morning."

Light flooded his senses and the boy groaned quietly before opening his eye to meet a pair of black ash orbs. A surprised squeak escaped from his lips before he tumbled off the other end of the bed, tangled in the sheets.

The newly turned chibi sent a glare at the offending teen while rubbing the back of his head where it had met with the floor. Damn his former self's early bird tendencies, "Kazu" wanted to sleep!

"Sleep is important for one's health." He mumbled into the sheets. Turning over and rolling himself up into the blankets, Kazu nuzzled back into their warmth and tried his best to ignore the early riser.

Suddenly, Kazu felt himself being dragged across the floor by the foot and then thrown into another room; the bathroom if the smell was any indication. In the second it took him to struggle out of the sheets, a bundle of material was thrown at his face and the door closed.

_'I guess other me wants me to take a shower.'_ Kazu thought as he admired his muddy clothes with a hint of mischievousness. _'Well if he's going to be like that about it.'_

Kazu made sure to take extra time in the shower just to mess with his younger self, and he changed into the simple black sleeveless mask-shirt and pants he was given.

He was rewarded with a scowl, a lecture, and a smack upside the head, but even after all of his dallying and Kakashi had redressed his wounds, hadn't been enough to make the teen late in meeting his team at the hospital.

Kazu, still weak from his injury though, began to limp just before they came upon the building.

He was assaulted by an angry medic when he approached.

"What were you thinking?!" The kunoichi demanded as she applied her ninjutsu to the five year old's body. "You could have hurt yourself! Do you know how worried I was?"

Kazu kept silent and looked away guiltily as she worked on his wounds. "Sorry." He whispered to her. Surprised she looked up and, with a frown, and went back to work on his injury.

"It's okay. At least you're safe." She sighed. "My name is Rin by the way. Nohara Rin."

"Hatake Kazu." He mumbled. "You know that though right?" She nodded.

"The guy with the orange goggles is Uchiha Obito and our jōnin sensei is Namikaze Minato." She spoke convsationally.

"Hiya Kazu!" Obito chirped. "How old are you? Has Kakashi-teme been treating you well?"

"Mmhm." He hummed quietly. "I'm five." He guessed his age. In a flash of inspiration he mischievously added, "What's a 'teme'?"

Kakashi snickered in the background as Obito choked on his tongue and Minato shot him a reprimanding glare. Kazu smirked as he began to grasp the full extent of his freedom as a child and grinned impishly behind his mask.

"W-well..." Obito began.

"Now, now children. Don't be rude. Behave yourselves." Minato interjected.

"Yes, sensei." The three chorused. Oh, how Kazu would enjoy this.

The blonde turned to Kazu. "That means you too, okay?"

The shorter Hatake turned to him innocently. "Yes, Minato-san."

Then Rin's hands were peeling his left eye open. He nearly shrieked, panicked and tried to escape her grasp to no avail. He attempted to pry her hands off of his head but failed. _'Not good. Seriously not good.' _He thought to himself. _'Please let no one else see!'_

"What's wrong Rin?" Obito asked as he approached, concerned.

Kakashi walked up behind her too and gasped slightly when he saw Kazu's eye. He blinked owlishly a few times in shock.

"I just thought that there would be something wrong with it since he has it closed, but nothing is out of the ordinary." She mused aloud, unconcerned.

Kazu blinked surprised when she let him go, and he looked at Kakashi's frozen form to his left, both eyes open. The teen flinched.

Obito walked between the two to take a look and frowned in concentration before declaring, "Your brother looks just like you Kakashi."

'_Kakashi can see it._' Kazu thought before looking a Minato. The jōnin gave him a smile, but looked away after a second unperturbed.

_'But no one else can.'_

* * *

AN: Please review. Feedback is appreciated. I'm trying my best to keep everyone in character but correct me if I make mistakes. Genre changed too. I decided to put a major storyline into this. One chapter per week though only. Thanks for reading!


	4. Changing

AN: I'm sorry for disappearing off of the face of the Earth for several weeks/months. School and plot bunnies absolutely hate me.

* * *

The moonlight was dripping into the hospital room when Kazu came to. He laid in his bed quietly, not that he could do anything else while strapped to the vile contraption (he had tried to escape three times already and was almost successful, _twice_). The nurses were still stupid enough to keep him in the civilian section. He was thinking about his predicament about being in the past. Impossible theories ran through his head as the more logical ones were brought up and quickly disproven.

It wasn't a genjutsu.

He had spent three days in a world where everyone and everything around him was dead. His war sharpened senses would have been able to locate a mouse within a mile radius in the empty wasteland because of the sheer lack of chakra. His sensitivity had peaked in the war and he had a panic attack when the ever present feeling of chakra just disappeared. Even the natural chakra had vanished, leaving him to practically choke on the dead air the after the fighting stopped. He would have known if someone cast a genjutsu on him. The large buildup of chakra would have left him reeling, but frankly, everyone who had the genjutsu prowess to successfully trap the Copy-Ninja in such a complex illusion was dead.

He breathed deeply and savored the full feel of the air within him. His now extreme chakra hypersensitivity hummed with contentment as the familiar comforting, warmth gently buzzed around him. He had missed it. 'Three days as a living being in a dead world would do that to a person.' Kazu mused.

He wasn't dead either.

He had been dead before. He had spoken w ith his dead father just before coming back to the realm of the living. He knew what the afterlife looked like. The landscape was surreal, dreamlike, and unnaturally personalized, making it a manifestation of one's memories combined with their mindscape. It was uncomfortably close to turning into his inner demons. This wasn't it.

Crazier possibilities popped into his head. Maybe he was dreaming? Asleep and still in the post-battle ruins? Was this just a muse of his imagination that isn't a nightmare? No, he had never had a dream that was this detailed and he hadn't had a dream that wasn't a nightmare since the Kyuubi's attack. But then, he hasn't had any really horrible dreams since before the war. His sleep had been light and dreamless on the battlefield.

Kazu thought harder. How _else_ could he have gotten to the past? A jutsu could have sent him into the past. Millions of forbidden techniques were lost to the world and it wouldn't surprise him if one had caused his inter-temporal travel.

But there was still the issue of the caster. The large amount of chakra needed to fuel such a jutsu would not have escaped his notice. Plus everyone was dead. Who cared about sending a twenty-nine going on thirty year old to the past? Why not to his death instead?

He could write a book as epic as Icha Icha filled with the names of people who wanted to kill him slowly and painfully, and he could write all the names of those who didn't on the back of his hand.

The only other possibility would be... He had used his _own_ chakra to somehow fuel a jutsu... that might or might not exist to travel back in time... and change his genetic code to avoid a paradoxical situation... Without killing him.

Kazu frowned. He needed to speak with the Hokage. This had to do with seals and summons or the like, and who better to ask than the Professor of Jutsu?

Carefully, Kazu built up a meager amount of chakra from his now pitiful reserves around his bound wrists and began the process of pulling apart the knot with aid of his chakra. Slowly but surely, the knot loosened, bit by bit, and his hands were freed. Sweating from exertion, Kazu forced his stiff muscles into action as he twisted out from underneath the belts. The five year old then jumped to the window and ran out of the building towards the Hokages's Tower.

* * *

Minato knocked on the door to the Sandaime's office quietly, breaking the night silence around him with the sharp taps. A gruff reply of 'Come in' came from the other side of the door and he opened it cautiously as he sensed a rather malicious presence of chakra in the room already.

He was greeted by eerie golden eyes and a cold smile. It was Orochimaru.

"Congradulations, Namikaze." His voice slid uncomfortably against his eardrum. Minato narrowed his eyes at the comment, staying silent. "Let us hope that you survive this war so that the old man is able to keep his promise." The blonde gritted his teeth but stepped aside Ochimaru walked past him and out of the room and closed the door behind him.

'_I do not like that man.' _Minato thought to himself. _'His aura is too much like that of a snake.'_

Minato turned to the Hokage with a sigh and then straightened out and addressed him. "You said you needed to talk to me Lord Hokage?" The blonde inquired. The Sandaime pulled a long draw from his pipe, then exhaled his answer.

"It is time for your team to back into the field." Instantly Minato began to protest, but the Hokage held up a hand to silence him before he got a single word out of his mouth. "It has been three weeks since their last mission. This war is reaching its climax and we need more Shinobi out there to do some damage control." The old man stated blandly. "I can give you a maximum of five days more of preparation before Team Minato will go into Iwa."

Minato grimaced but kept his head down in submission. He hated sending his team out to war. "Yes, sir."

"Kakashi will be officially promoted to jōnin rank by then, yes?" The Hokage asked. The blonde nodded. "Good, he will lead this mission along side you. You will go to the front lines. The team will ta ke on the espionage mission to destroy Kanabi."

"_What_?" Minato said incredulously. "You are _seriously_ thinking about sending him out on a mission that dangerous? They're still just kids..."

"Minato," the Sandaime stated calmly. "Kakashi is not a child anymore. The next generation must take over for the previous. You can no longer treat them as children if you ever want them to become better Shinobi."

The blonde was about to retort, but he noticed the way that the old man had phrased his argument. "This isn't just about my students, is it?" He narrowed his eyes. "You're going to retire."

"Sharp as always, Minato. I am going to step down. And I have chosen my successor, and the council has approved my choice." The Sandaime puffed into his pipe. "You will be named the Yondaime Hokage, Minato."

* * *

Escaping the hospital was easy enough once Kazu slipped past the jōnin level traps that the medical ninja were kind enough to set for him. Thankfully there were no built in alarms, because he found himself caught in one of the more complicated wire traps when he made a small miscalculation in his step.

He blames his new status as a toddler.

When he was well out of the hospital's vicinity, he poured on a good amount of speed to get to the Hokage tower as quickly as possible. He surprised himself when he zipped through the empty streets of Konoha's industrial district at chūnin speed. He was careful to avoid the openness of the street lights. He took to the shadows and muffled his steps as much as he could with his horrible chakra control and concentration levels.

'_Loud sneak...'_ He dubbed his new way of travel. '_I'm as loud as a deranged cat with a twisted paw. They sneak loudly... Right?_' He thought to himself. Then he nearly tripped again as his thoughts broke his five-year-old concentration skills. Thankfully he was able to stay hidden from any threatening forces. Aka people who would put him back in the hospital.

But like normal, his luck ran out just before he reached his destination.

Kazu rounded the corner that would lead him straight to the Hokage Tower and crashed straight into something that smelled horrible. Panic hit him like freight train when he figured out that the smell was familiar.

Like snakes.

Suddenly he flashed back to his experience in the war. He remembered how Sasuke was taken over, how his body had contorted like a medium for that snake's chakra. He remembered the desperation in Sasuke's eyes just before they closed in submission. He remembered the black flames that devoured the twisting, screaming form with overlapping voices as his gut clenched in nausea. And he remembered the wickedly acidic guilt as it began coursing through his body yet again.

It was burned into his memory, like a fresh scar. Something he could never forget.

He hadn't even registered that he was running until he found himself at his old apartment. 'Kakashi's apartment' He corrected himself. Kazu quickly let himself in since the door was conveniently unlocked and immediately made his way to the bedroom. Carefully, as to not cause Kakashi to suddenly wake and attack him, he tapped softly on the door.

It flew open before he could tap the door a second time to reveal a very awake, very annoyed teen.

"What are you doing here? You should be in the hospital still." Something in Kakashi's voice caused Kazu's child instincts to take over, and the boy latched onto the other like a leech, then proceeded to cry his heart out.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kazu might have heard a soft protest from the older, but it didn't matter.

He was safe. No war. No death. No guilt. No regrets. No impending doom.

Kazu was safe.

* * *

To be honest, Kakashi didn't know what to do when the five year old Hatake had come into his apartment and began to bawl his eyes out. He didn't like kids, and he always left the mushy stuff to his team's resident female. Usually he could just send the kid to one of his other teammates, not wanting to deal with it and knowing that one of them would know what to do when he didn't. That wasn't his problem here.

The problem was that he didn't have he heart to turn the kid away.

Every single day, Kakashi would ask Rin how the younger Hatake was faring, half wanting to see if any of the medics had picked up anything on Kazu's strange bicolored eyes, and half needing to know if he was actually okay. He had seen the pained look Kazu had when had woken up in the hospital. The look of guilt, regret, and loss. Sure, he could have visited the twerp himself, but then the world would see the side of Kakashi that he wasn't willing to share. It was bad enough that Kakashi was secretly looking up eye conditions as some internal instinct of his landed him in the medical section of the library looking up possible reasons why it was red. Of course he cared, but even he knew that he had emotionally stunted himself after bottling up his grief over his father.

Caring and showing that he cared were two very different things in Kakashi's mind.

Perhaps the chance to start over and have a happier life with someone related to him, someone who was actually family was what made the normally grumpy and antisocial chūnin so emotionally drawn to the kid. Or maybe it was the kid himself, who in his brief contact with Kakashi, treated not only like a human being (not the mindlesskillersonofthewhitefang) but like a brother.

Or maybe it was because he desperately didn't want to feel alone anymore.

Gently, Kakashi pulled Kazu off of him and picked him up. Walking over to the bed, he laid the kid on the mattress and sat down on the edge. Slowly, Kazu's breathing slowed and the tears stopped flowing. Within minutes, the kid had fallen asleep.

Kakashi sighed to himself at the predicament he was in, chiding himself about letting his emotions show and relieved that the immediate problem was over. Tired, and not wanting to work up the energy to solve the newest mystery pegged onto the kid, the thirteen year old stood up and trudged to the sofa in the main room. Taking one of the traveling blankets off of the shelf, he settled himself on the couch and closed his eyes.

Just before he fell asleep he felt a small body worm its way onto the cushions beside him.

For the first time in years, sleep claimed him with a smile on his face.

* * *

AN: This took forever. I'm not happy with it. It's eleven fifteen but the idea didn't let me go. Even so, I'm glad I finally got more of this done.


	5. Tears

AN: I am so sorry. This was one of the hardest chapters to write because of both its subject and its stubbornness. It took forever to finish this chapter off. I just hope that the next one won't be as tough.

* * *

Chapter 5: Tears

Kazu snuggled into the comforting warmth of the blankets, trying to avoid the light peaking through the sheets. Several minutes passed before he noticed the smell of soup coming from the kitchen: eggplant miso to be exact. He blinked carefully and noted that the sun had just begun its trek across the sky. Instantly he attempted to untangle the sheets he had cocooned himself in and scrambled to the kitchen. Waiting in all its steamy glory was a bowl of liquid heaven with a note left by it. Instead of reading it right away, Kazu immediately went to the silverware drawer. To his surprise, there were no spoons. His brother had taken them all!

'You can eat it if you get Obito to Training Area 7 on time.'  
Said the note, not doubt from Kakashi.

Frowning at being thwarted from the deliciousness of the soup, and slightly out off by the fact that there were no spoons, Kazu sighed and zipped back into the bedroom to change. Borrowing a red scarf from the hanger, the boy quickly grabbed an apple for breakfast and ran out the door and made a beeline for the Uchiha Compound.

He nearly tripped on his way down the stairs, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Like he was forgetting something important; something he should, no, needed to remember. He shook his head, feeling absurdly stupid for not remembering and tried to refocus his thoughts. But the feeling didn't fade.

He tossed the apple core into a nearby public waste bin before entering the Compound and looking for his brother's teammate. He raced through the busy streets full of non-Shinobi Uchihas and drew several odd looks from those he passed. He searched the first mini store for the familiar jet black spiky hair and orange goggles, then the next little stand, and the next after that. He searched up and down the street as quickly as he could without missing anyone.

Obito wasn't there. The five year old went to the next street and searched in a similar fashion, only to be surrounded by unfamiliar and unkind faces. They glared at him after they saw his silver hair and masked face, but Kazu just glared right back completely unintimidated by them. There was still no Obito.

The sun was well on its way down by that time Kazu was done sweeping the compound with no sign of his brother's teammate. He let out a frustrated sigh and resigned to searching the hard way.

The first person he approached completely ignored him. The second and third glared at him and told him to 'scurry off' and 'go back to his Teme of an older brother'. Obito still had to tell Kazu what that meant. On the fourth and unlucky try, he asked a rather grumpy looking man where he could find the missing Uchiha. The man rounded him quicker than his five year old eyes could follow and and backhanded Kazu right across the cheek. Kazu was thrown to the ground and his eyes stung at the pain. The man glared at him with brilliant crimson eyes.

"Get out of here, Hatake. This village has no room for the likes of you." He grit out from between his teeth. Kazu glared right on back with his eye and then sneezed, completely nullifying any of the intensity in his gaze. Someone behind him picked him up roughly and held him in a headlock.

"Hey Koichi, how about we have some fun with the brat. He seems persistent enough to play." Something about the way he said that made Kazu feel both defiant and uncomfortable. The man, Koichi, laughed.

"Why not? It's almost dark anyway." Kazu heard them snicker and then his hands were bound behind his back before he could even react. Immediately he pushed against his captor and took off running. He didn't know where he was going or where he would end up, but he ran as fast as his body would push him.

They were still faster than him.

Kazu ducked into a side street and crashed straight into the nearest house, barely escaping the grasp of those chasing him, and frantically searched for a place to hide. He heard a crash of broken glass and he turned to see a woman holding onto a young boy his age. A small flash of envy coursed through his system before he was snatched up off of his feet by his pursuers.

"Gotcha, little fucker!" He saw the woman and boy flinch as he struggled helplessly in the man's grip. "You're gonna pay for making me look like a fool in front of the Main Family." He whispered vehemently in Kazu's ear. "Excuse us, Uchiha-sama." Then he turned and began walking towards the door.

Kazu began panicking. "No! Let me go! Let me GO!" He exclaimed, voice cracking. "Help! Let me go!" He pushed and kicked and screamed, but they didn't loosen their grip.

Suddenly his left eye burned like someone had poured acid on it. He looked up again and he saw double. Bright red and stark violet splotched his normal vision and he felt like throwing up. Their chakra felt nasty. He kicked backwards with his heel and felt it connect with someone's kneecap with a sharp crunch and he was instantly dropped.

Kazu rounded on them like an injured animal; angry, intense, desperate. "Don't TOUCH me!" He said with snarl. He backed away from them and more into the house. "Leave me _alone_!" More flashes of red and purple began to pop into his field of vision and he looked around desperately searched for someone, anyone to help him.

Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and he whipped around quickly to see the woman looking down at him sternly. Her grip was strong and he could have easily broken free, but he just stood there; frozen. All at once he was very aware that her eyes had turned bright crimson, how he was shaking like a leaf in the wind, and how she had the pinkest aura about her. He didn't know if that was good or bad.

She looked at the group of men who had chased Kazu and said, "You can leave now. I'll take care of this. Go home and eat a good dinner." Her tone was gentle but had a biting edge to it that reminded Kazu of someone else, someone he had forgotten. The men blanched slightly and grudgingly backed out of the house, not liking that their prey had been snatched or the unforgiving look in the woman's eyes. She and the boy watched them all the way.

When the door finally closed, everyone in the room let out a sigh of relief.

"Itachi, grab a knife from the kitchen." She addressed the boy. Kazu's eyes widened.

"H-hai, Mikiko-san." Itachi stuttered. The woman held Kazu up by the arms and he felt himself buckle at the knees. His mouth dried up and his heart lodged itself in his throat as he reassessed the situation. They had just saved him from those men and he was tied up; completely at their mercy. But... they were going to hurt him anyway.

Kazu heard footsteps behind him, signaling Itachi's return from the kitchen, and slumped over dejectedly in submission. Tears began to slide down his cheeks in a silent stream. He bit his lip to stifle the oncoming sobs. He wished Kakashi were here.

* * *

_He heard footsteps nearing his hiding place and it took all of his might to keep from uttering a peep. The ninja here were after his family, and his Okaa-San had told him to stay in the cupboard and keep absolutely silent while she dealt with them._

_The ninja brought her into the small view that the crack between the cupboard doors provided and he heard her heaving for air._

_"What do you want? I already left the Leaf and came back to Kiri! There is nothing left to take away from me!" He heard her shout at the masked Shinobi. "I have done nothing to deserve this!"_

_One of the ninja spoke. "According to our intelligence, you have been keeping someone else here in this little solitary home of yours. That was against our agreement. You are not to keep outsiders in your home. Where is he?"_

_"Who?" A sharp smack sounded and he flinched at the sight. They were hurting her._

_"We know he is here. Tell us an your life will be spared."_

_He looked out of the cupboard again and saw his mother smile a wicked smile at the masked nin. "Burn in hell, bastards."_

_Then there was fire everywhere. It hurt. It hurt. Ithurtithurt. It was hot. And his lungs felt like they were breathing in acid. And he was screaming as the house collapsed around him._

_He remembers his mother's eyes, multicolored and wet and she said, "Be safe."_

* * *

"Give me the knife, Itachi." A pause. What was he doing here again? What was his name?

"Why? He didn't do anything. And no one is here to see. Can't we just let him go?" He inquired, shakily. "We don't have to tell anyone." He squeezed his eyes shut and blinked away the rest of his tears as the memories came back sharply like a lightning bolt. Two timelines began to bleed together and then he saw the world with a new awareness.

"Just give it to me, Itachi."

He turned to look at the woman, both eyes clear of fear, just to have her turned away from him and sneering at the younger Uchiha.

He heard the knife clatter to the ground as Itachi screamed. Kazu quickly tried to pull away but he felt pain on the back of his head before before he could. His vision turned blurry. He heard a whisper in his ear just before he blacked out.

"I'll be the only one to have fun playing with you little boy."

* * *

A figure sat on an electrical wire and observed the scene before him. Of all the people brought back with him, it just had to be that man. Fate obviously liked throwing nasty curveballs to the both of them; always giving them what they wanted in the nastiest ways. He had never wanted to see him again, that bastard, but in a way he was glad. He will suffer with him.

He turned to the great stone faces and heaved a sigh. Nothing was as simple as it seems and that man had already changed this timeline enough to make it take an unexpected turn. The same events may not take place again in this time. The course of history has already been altered. The mere existence of elements that had not existed before has tipped the scales. In which way, the man didn't know.

But somehow, he knew that this little game had just taken a turn into unfamiliar territory.

* * *

Kakashi arrived at his apartment exhausted and in a bad mood. The training session today went badly, tearing up the field like as if a giant cat had decided to use the earth as a scratching post. He and Obito had fought it out on the field and for some reason, both of them had too much pent up tension and had taken it out on each other.

It was never supposed to be different from normal, but today they had almost taken each others heads off... In a spar. The stupid dobe didn't know when to stop and Kakashi, for his pride, had to do more than just defend himself against the angry Uchiha.

The teen groaned in exhaustion and stumbled into the kitchen for a glass of water, but he stopped in his tracks when he caught the scent of food that had been left on his table. It was eggplant miso soup; cold and untouched with a crumpled note sitting next to it.

He smoothed out the paper and gazed myopically at the words. Realization flooded though his veins like ice and his eyes widened a fraction. He looked around his apartment quickly searching for the kid that had been there just that morning. Nothing.

Kakashi shot out the door and practically shunshined to Obito's apartment in his haste. Knocking on the door, Kakashi practically growled in impatience.

"Obito, open the damn door!" Kakashi heard the lock click open and a groggy eyed Uchiha appeared in the doorway in dark sleeping clothes and an orange mask pushed to the side of his face. For some reason, Kakashi didn't like that mask.

"'Kashi-teme? Wha-"

"Kazu's missing. Did you see him this morning?" The Uchiha rubbed his eyes sleepily.

"No. Why?" Silence.

"Shit!" The Hatake cursed. Then he looked at his teammate and saw that his exclamation had effectively forced the drowsiness from Obito's eyes.

"What happened? Where is he?" Kakashi said nothing but handed him the note.

"This isn't your handwriting..." Obito mused, then he gasped with horror dawning on his features. "...He hasn't returned to your apartment, it's the middle of the night... He went to the Compound...! Kakashi we have to find him!"

"Do you think he's trapped in the Compound?" Kakashi asked, all animosity against his teammate slipping away as worry wormed its way into his mind.

Obito looked at him grimly. "Worse. He's probably trapped with one of the worst people in Konoha." The two took off towards the Uchiha Compound as fast as they could, Obito slipping the mask over his face and leading the way for once. Biting down the scalding insult (_Kazu was still trapped in the compound!_), Kakashi eyed his teammate; silently questioning. He saw Obito's fists clench.

"Mikiko Uchiha."

* * *

Kazu came to in a dimly lit room, but he was completely naked from the waist up. His short cry of embarrassment and horror was muffled by the tape wrapped securely around his mouth and when he went to cover his exposed face with his hand, his efforts were stopped with the rope tying him to the bed frame.

_'Shit.'_ Kazu thought, trying to break free from the oppressive contraption. Then he heard a whimper from his left and he flipped over to see a blindfolded Itachi in a worse state he himself was in. The the door opened to reveal a scantly clad, very predatory looking Uchiha who just so happened to be the woman Kazu had seen earlier with Itachi. Then his five year old processing skills made the connection.

_'Double shit.'_

* * *

"Can you track him?" Obito asked once they reached the compound. "I wouldn't know which house they would be in." Kakashi sniffed the air intently.

Then he turned away, slid down his mask and made an odd coughchokescreamgrunt noise that Obito couldn't identify.

"Wh-what was that?!" He blubbered.

"That kid has been all over this place. I could follow it from start to finish, but it would take too long. We would be too late. Do you know any preferences that the kidnapper has to take the..." Kakashi swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing to show the Hatake's anxiety. "Victims?" He sniffled.

"...did you just _sneeze_?" Obito practically stared. Kakashi ignored him as usual.

"Focus, Obito." The Uchiha puffed indignantly, but deflated some when he saw anxiously irritated expression in his teammate's eyes.

"Junta's house, Shisui's, Mikoto-oba's house, and mine."

Kakashi sped way towards the nearest residence, Mikoto Uchiha's, and Obito followed right behind him. When they got to the house, immediately they both felt the foreboding air that surrounded the structure.

"...op it... Pl... Oh...! ..et me go...!" Came from inside. "No...! ..gah...ahgah... hnn... ah... STOP IT!" The boys didn't even hesitate to break open the door and speed towards the source. When they got to the bedroom and they broke that one open too, hearing the screams getting louder.

The two froze in horror at what they were currently witnessing. The woman was stark naked and laying in an arched position right above a naked, whimpering, crying Itachi. To the left side of the bed lay an equally naked Kazu, who lay curled up in a fetal position with his mouth taped shut, his eyes wide, and blank expressionless face.

Obito and Kakashi snarled and attacked the woman like twin demons, tearing her off of Itachi and away from the two children. Obito launched furious kicks into her side and Kakashi caught her by the throat before pinning her to the floor. She screamed fearfully and thrashed underneath him, managing to throw the teen off, but Obito reached her before she could recover.

He took out a kunai and slashed brutally at her face. She barely dodged but found herself face to face with Kakashi. Again he took her by the throat and glared viciously into her twin sharingan eyes. The killing intent radiating off him hit her in a sudden torrential rush. Suddenly, the woman seized in terror, her eyes widening in horror as she stared into his bicolored eyes and clutched the hand at her throat.

"Don't you ever touch them again! If I so much as see you near them again, I won't hesitate to rip out your intestines and feed them to you! Do you understand?" He shook her violently. She nodded dumbly and was thrown to the floor in a pitiful heap.

Kakashi turned away towards the bed and began to untie Kazu's bound limbs, his back toward Mikiko. She quickly rounded him with one of the house's many hidden katana's in her hands. Obito shunshined in front of her before she could land a strike and sliced upwards at her eye. The following scream echoed through the entire compound as blood gushed from her left eye. Kakashi only spared her a backwards glance, hatred etching his features, before returning to his brother.

Obito glared just as fiercely at her shaking figure. "I should kill you for what you have done. The crimes you committed, to them and to me, are certainly deserving of it." He crouched down next to her, crimson bleeding into his gaze through his mask as he hogtied her. "But I will let Fugaku decide your punishment in my stead." The woman abruptly stopped shaking and looked at him with her single pleading eye.

"W-who are you? What do you w-want from me?!"

"You know me." Obito spat as he raised a fist eye level. "Maybe I need to make you remember-"

"Let the bitch go, Tobi." Kakashi lectured. "Like you said, Fugaku will deal with her."

Obito said nothing but covered up her naked body and backed away from the cowering woman. Then he went to free a still crying Itachi.

* * *

When the strangled cries of his captor died down, two hands reached up to Itachi's covered eyes. Instinctively he flinched away from them and cried out in fear.

"Don't hurt me! Please! Don't hurt me! I'll do whatever you want. Promise!"

A low, slightly scratchy tone echoed soothingly in his ears. "I'm not going to hurt you, Itachi. I'm going to untie you and take the blindfold off, okay? The evil lady is all tied up now and can't hurt you." A cloth fluttered around him and Itachi felt his feet being cut free and his arms released from their position above his head. Then suddenly he heard a strangled cry from beside him and Itachi immediately curled up into the blanket to hide from the man.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry! Don't hurt me, please!"

"It's okay, Itachi." The voice said. "I need you to take off the blindfold for me so you can see." Carefully, Itachi removed the tape across his eyes and peaked out of the blanket. A boy, defiantly older than himself, sat on the edge of the bed calmly with an orange mask covering his face. Then the older boy reached down and offered Itachi his clothes back.

He shot out a pale hand from underneath the covers and pulled them on. The older boy waited patiently for Itachi to finish, before asking him.

"Are you hurt anywhere? Did that woman hit you?"

Itachi paled and began shaking again. Then nodded and gestured vaguely towards the area between his legs. Itachi saw the masked boy clench his fists before they relaxed and he turned to him.

"She can't hurt you anymore. I made sure of it. You're safe now." The masked boy said. Itachi was still trembling and the older boy suddenly looked uneasy, before placing a gentle, familiar hand on his head. "It will get better. I promise."

Itachi said nothing more as he slipped himself onto the older boy's arms and cried.

His mysterious savior returned his embrace.

* * *

Kakashi felt his hands shaking as he cut away at Kazu's bindings, seeing the boy's face as blank as a new piece of paper angered, worried, and horrified him all at once. After freeing the boy's ankles, he draped one of the bed's discarded sheets over his exposed body and he carefully untied Kazu 's arms. Then he saw it, the sickly greenish glow that seemed to emanate from Kazu's form. 'Genjutsu', Kakashi suspected, relaxing slightly at the knowledge. A simple 'Kai' was said and the nasty aura dispersed to reveal a calming white in its stead.

Kakashi tried to shake the boy awake. "Kazu-". A leg flipped out from underneath the sheet and swung around at him. The chūnin had barely enough time to throw up an arm to block the surprisingly swift blow and made a slight exclamation of shock.

Kazu thrashed and thrashed in the sheet until Kakashi successfully pinned him down and force the boy to look into his eyes. Ash and red met ash and red as Kazu recognized his brother's voice and face. The five year old relaxed slowly in Kakashi's embrace.

The older Hatake then proceeded to pull carefully at the tape off Kazu's mouth.

"K-Kakashi...?" He stuttered once his mouth was free. Kakashi nodded and Kazu gripped his shirt. Kakashi reached down and grabbed the mask shirt that devil woman had stripped off of his brother and pulled it over Kazu's head silently. Then he took the rest of the boy's clothing and dressed him.

Kazu never stopped staring at him.

Then, "Aniki?" Kazu questioned voice trembling. Kakashi looked at him silently before enveloping the boy in an open display of affection. Kazu cried into his brother's shoulder, releasing all the pent up fear and agony into the warm arms of his savior. "I was so scared! I just.. I just...!"

Kakashi pulled him in tighter and rested his cheek on the top of his head, silently comforting the traumatized boy.

Kazu just cried and cried.

* * *

AN: There's a new poll up in my profile that will be used in one of the upcoming chapters. Please vote for your favorite choice. I promise the next chapter will be better.


	6. Remembering

Chapter 6: Remembering

The first thing that Kazu did when he woke up was scream. The second thing he did was run to the bathroom and throw up the remainder of his dinner into the toilet. He was shaking so hard that he had to use the counter to his left to support his weight. His head was throbbing and he felt the hot tears flowing down his mask less face. He looked up into the mirror and saw the hauntingly crimson eye from his dreams. He heaved again.

He had never had a nightmare like that one before. He had felt like he knew the people in them though; the silver haired man, the chocolate haired girl, the blue eyed teacher and his fiery wife, and the sad dark eyes of the best friend. He knew them and yet...

...-lightning flashed and there was a familiar tantō buried in his-...

...-he felt the squelch of flesh as he withdrew his hand from-...

...-screams ripped from his mouth as saw the gaping holes running right through-...

...-he was dismembering the still writhing body as white oozed out of-...

He dry heaved, face in the foul smelling bowl. This was worse than his dreams about his mother. Than watching her bleed out right before his eyes. He couldn't even begin describing the guilt that that dream had encompassed.

And for some odd reason he felt that they were all connected to his older brother.

The small apartment felt even emptier with his brother out than it had normally. Since joining the Academy to better his defensive skills, he saw a lot less of Kakashi than he had before. It was slightly lonely because of their off schedules but the old scarf that Kakashi himself had worn on his first day at the Acadamy had brightened his spirits somewhat even after the older of the two had announced that he was going on a two week long mission in Iwa and would be training long hours with his team until then.

Kazu couldn't shake the bad gut feeling he had about it, so he took a quick shower and changed into his clothes for school and tied the scarf neatly around his neck. A quick bite to eat and he left for the Acadamy at his usual time; three hours past the time school began. As he began his leisurely walk towards the building and slowly forgot about his earlier dream.

When he opened the door to the classroom he was greeted by his home room teacher, Watanabe Ren. Kazu remembered the little prank he had pulled on the chūnin on his first day of school and the surprisingly girlish scream that had erupted from the man's mouth.

Without even looking up from the board Ren-sensei addressed him. "You're late. What's your excuse this time?"

Kazu took his seat nonchalantly, next to an older girl named Chouko, and settled into his seat before answering. "I had to go to the store to buy peanut butter."

People snickered.

Ren-sensei sighed. "What did you need peanut butter for?" He asked, humoring the boy. Kazu smiled.

"I was supposed to feed Bull today but there was nothing left in the fridge except hot dogs. And I couldn't feed Bull hot dogs so I bought bread and peanut butter for a peanut butter sandwich."

"Why couldn't you feed him the hot dogs? I'm sure he would love you if you gave him some."

Kazu gasped dramatically. "I couldn't feed Bull hot dogs! That would be... an abomination!"

The young Hatake swears he saw his ever patient sensei's eyebrow twitch as the chalk broke in his hand.

"Hatake, if you didn't ace that placement exam three days ago, I would have told you to stop goofing off and start studying instead of being late every day to class. But in this case I will make an exception."

Protests were heard from almost every student in the room. Ren-sensei raised up his hand abruptly to silence them and then launched an object in Kazu's direction in a flash of movement.

A single leaf stuck itself under Kazu's nose.

"As punishment you have to sit there through my entire lecture with that leaf on your nose. You cannot move you body or the leaf and it will stay there until it falls off. Even if it stays until after class is over. Have fun."

The one thing that all ninken owners have is a sensitive nose, a very sensitive one. It takes a long time to train oneself how to ignore the vast majority of smells in the air as one, and Kazu had very little training of anything at all. Just a lot of common sense.

So that little leaf, the peppermint one that Sensei had so graciously threw at his head, bothered the little Hatake a lot. Some students thought the punishment unfair and grumbled to themselves as Ren began his lecture again, but the two Inuzukas in the room flashed the younger boy a commiserating glance. Sensei was smart, Kazu would give him that but Kazu was smarter.

Two minutes into the lecture, Kazu sneezed.

* * *

School was not the happiest place for Kazu though. At the end of the day, when all of the other kids got picked up by their parents, Kazu would get glares and snickers from the adult population.

He was a Hatake, a disgrace to the ninja world. He walked home quietly, ignoring the heated glares sent his way. What hurt more though was the comments he got.

"Another Hatake brat huh?"

"I heard that he's just as arrogantly talented as his older brother. The highest scoring student out of all the classes and three hours late to school every day."

"I heard that he was a bastard the White Fang had with some woman just before he killed himself."

Kazu always ran home from the Acadamy and he heard more horrible things than that on his way. People seemed to want to go out of the way to make his life miserable. He learned which roads to take to avoid the drunken men who chased after him the first day, which places to hide from the bullies at the Acadamy, and how to avoid the hateful genin and chūnin after school. He would probably be the best at enemy evasion by the end of his time at the Acadamy.

He would always walk by the Uchiha Compound to check on his new (and secret) friend Itachi and wave at him discreetly in the streets. It was little comfort knowing that he was alright. The bitch was still alive and kicking, apparently the loss of her left sharingan eye was enough punishment for all of the deeds she had done.

That was probably why Kazu wasn't allowed to go over to Itachi's house to play, but Kazu guessed that his training regime, as set by Kakashi, would keep him busy after school was over anyway.

Fifty push ups, twenty laps around the apartment, seventy sit ups, one hundred shuriken throws, ninety kunai throws, and four kata sequences all in one workout. And that wasn't even the hardest part. His paranoid Onii-san put Kazu through chakra exersizes, races, taijutsu spars, and evasion tactics. Kakashi was a slave driver, not that Kazu minded too much. Better safe than kidnapped.

The training kept him busy throughout the day and distracted him from loneliness.

Two days were spent at the Academy, but once school got out, Kazu just ended up wandering around the village without any sort of purpose. He knew well not to overwork himself but he soon found that he had too much time on his hands and nothing to do.

His boredom was cured with a sudden epiphany. He could go to the library.

Kazu quickly sprinted over to the unassuming building in pursuit of entertainment. He walked in and almost scared the life out of the librarian, who was blushing madly while holding an orange book in her hands. This automatically drew his attention to the little packet of bound pages and the odd smell hanging around the woman. She stuttered slightly before realizing that he was just a kid and calming down a bit.

"C-can I help you?" The librarian inquired. Kazu stared for a second before shaking his head and refocusing.

"What's that one about?" The woman turned red again and didn't answer. Instead she dismissed his question and put the book back on the shelf. Kazu had to admit he was slightly disappointed that he wouldn't get to find out what was making the woman so flustered but he asked her where he could find any books on chakra sensing.

She seemed slightly surprised at the request, perhaps not thinking the little masked boy with an innocent disposition to be old enough to be a ninja in training. She led him over to the right section and pointed out some helpful ones.

"What do you need these for, gaki?" She asked. Kazu eye smiled.

"I was bored. And chakra sensing exercises are something I could do in my free time without putting as much physical strain on my body." He stated matter of factly. "But I also need to find a nice reading book for fun later." Then another idea hit him. "Oh, and maybe a prank guide or trap book, and a pigment or botany book. Those should keep me busy."

The lady smiled slightly and disappeared between the shelves to find these books for him. It didn't take long for Kazu to check out his pile of books before sprinting back to the apartment. Kakashi would only let him be late by twenty-one minutes before he went looking for him so he could drag the Acadamy student to the apartment for training.

Kazu was already twenty minutes late so he had roughly sixty seconds to appear in front of his brother, ready to train before all hell broke loose. And he was on the other side of Konoha from the apartment.

He pushed chakra into his legs. Forty.

He passed from the Commercial section into the Residential section. Twenty.

He nearly tripped over a stupid cat. Ten.

He stepped into the complex. Five.

He dropped his books on his bed. Three.

He threw his bag onto the couch. Two.

He rounded the corner crashed straight into his brother, knocking both of them to the floor; Kazu out of imbalance and Kakashi out of surprise.

"You're late." The elder said. "By-"

"Twenty minutes and fifty-eight seconds." Kazu finished, panting. "I found this cat in an alley on the way and-"

"No time for excuses. We're going to see the Hokage."

Eh? "Why? What happened?" Kakashi ignored him and pulled the boy by the nape of his shirt right out of the building.

* * *

Kazu had to say that he was freaking out somewhat when he saw two strangers and Minato with the Hokage when he entered the room. He wasn't in trouble was he?

"Hatake Kazu." The old man said.

"Yes, sir?" The five year old asked politely.

"You are here to answer our questions and it is in your best interest to answer them truthfully. Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course." The Hokage smiled.

"What is your name?"

"Hatake Kazu"

"Your real name." Kazu frowned.

"I don't understand. What do you mean by that?"

"What was your name before you came here?" The blonde man next to the Hokage insisted. Something sparked in his mind and Kazu reached up and placed his left hand over his closed eye, as if he were remembering something.

"I- I don't... I should know this. I know that I'm not supposed to be here. But I... every time I try to pull out the answer... It's just blank. I'm not... Supposed to be here." He said truthfully.

"I will ask again, who are you?"

"...everything is just a blur... A hazy, red tainted blur." Kazu's hand lowered to grip the part of his shirt right above the heart. "There's so many bodies... So much red, dripping, sticky, salty... I feel so guilty, for doing something. I..." Kazu's grip tightened. "lived even though I shouldn't. I couldn't do anything."

Kazu lowered his blank gaze to the floor. "It was all my fault."

The little boy turned to Kakashi who stood next to him and saw the grim look on his face.

"I did have a dream the other day though..." He said. Suddenly everyone's attention was glued to him.

"What was in this dream?" The Hokage asked. Kazu practically threw up again at the recollection of the dream and paled considerably.

Kazu tried to convey as much as he could about the dream in his words but all that came out was...

"Everyone was dead."

* * *

AN: sorry for the late update yet again. The plot suddenly changed itself and the accommodations for it were a bit hard to figure out. The poll will stay up until the twenty fifth review but the chapter will include all choices that were voted for. The devil is in the details.


	7. Revelations

AN: Happy day! Update day!

* * *

Chapter 7: Revelations

Before he could even react, a hand was forcefully slapped onto his head, and then everything Kazu saw faded away and was replaced with a dimly lit white room.

* * *

"I guess it really isn't possible then."

The voice echoed strangely in the landscape. Kazu turned in surprised panic and came face to face with an old, probably in his thirties, masked man sitting cross-legged behind bars right behind him.

An embarrassing squeak erupted from the normally calm five year old as he sat down hard. The man laughed a bark-like laugh. It wasn't malicious or threatening in any way, but warm and genuine; in fact it actually sounded slightly familiar. The man smiled at him from underneath the mask and Kazu took in the other's appearance.

He had spiked silver hair that slumped off to the side of the his head without lessening their gravity defying quality. He wore a dark blue sleeveless mask shirt with a white scarf around his neck, standard Shinobi pants and shoes that were bound at the shins, and blue arm guards with silver plating. He was pale, but healthy looking with a jagged scar over his left eye. His left, glowing, crimson...

Oh, Kami...

"You!" Kazu sputtered out as he sprang back to his feet. "You're the one from the dreams... You..." The memories came back in a sudden rush. "You're him. You're-" Kazu stopped suddenly and peered up at the familiar stranger's odd eyes. "Who are you anyway? And why am I here?"

The man shoved one hand into his pocket and rubbed the back of his head with the other.

"Who I am doesn't really matter right now. At least not until we get this little meeting figured out, because this-" the man glanced around with narrow eyes at the blanketing white, "place, has been completely scrubbed clean. Like a memory seal gone crazy or something. I was just trying to block that man's chakra from entering your system and ended up getting pushed back with into your mind-scape with you. So I have no clue what you're doing here."

Kazu felt some pieces click together.

"You're not my conscience are you?" The man stared at him for a second before bursting out laughing again. Kazu frowned, puzzled and slightly embarrassed that the man was laughing at him. "What's so funny?" His guess made sense... Didn't it?

"No I am not your conscience!" He said between laughs. "And although I many be currently in your mind, I technically have no name so I technically can't tell you." Well that, told Kazu nothing about him. Somehow, he trusted the mysterious man who was strangely trapped in a prison in his mind.

"So, I can call you whatever I want?" He asked. The man nodded with an eye smile. Kazu though a moment about names before coming up with a good one. He turned and smiled brightly at his new companion. "I'll call you Kikuto-san."

The man blinked and asked, "Kikuto?" The younger nodded.

"You reminded me of chrysanthemums." He said, mischief within his tone. "Calm, soothing, simple, and spiky looking!" After a few seconds of silence, both of them burst into laughter. Somehow the comparison between the flower and the man was so ironically apt that it was hilarious.

"You are so cheerful." Kikuto chuckled. "I thought you would have been more frightened of me, considering I'm not really a part of you."

Kazu smiled at him serenely.

"You're a nice person in the dreams." He said. Kikuto looked up at the boy questioning. "Lots of bad things happened to you, but you still cared a lot about your friends. You kept going for them." Kikuto's eyes widened.

"How did you know that?" He whispered and gripped the bars. "I didn't- that's not- what did you-?"

"At the black stone. You were crying when I woke up. It was hard to figure out who I was at first because you were like me. You were sad because you were alone. You had Red Dreams and I had to watch." Kazu said. "Then you kinda disappeared until that night at the compound."

Kikuto flinched at the memory. When Kazu's mind practically broke, they had almost... Shit, there's definitely a seal or two messing up the kid's psyche. Kikuto thought. Besides the one keeping me locked up in here, or it could be the same one and our personalities are too similar to not meld together the instant of contact when the seal weakens.

"I'll try and get you out of here, alright?" Kikuto suggested. Kazu nodded vigorously. "But we gotta take care of that-"

Suddenly the area surrounding them changed as a drop of color exploded onto the area and Kazu slumped to the floor clutching his head. Instantly Kikuto was up on his feet and pushing against the cage bars to get a hold of his host. "Kazu!"

The blonde haired man burst into the area of white, scattering color and light everywhere.

Immediately Kikuto's killing intent rolled towards the man in waves.

It was the interrogator.

The man turned to him sharply but paused as a dark energy from behind the bars stretched towards him with astonishing speed. The man braced himself for the impact, but it never came. He gazed suspiciously at the spiked energy poised right above him and then looked at the other being who had his hand stretched out like a claw between the bars.

That man's voice would forever be burned into his mind along with the freezing electric burn of his killing intent.

"Get. Out."

He was practically ripped out of the young Hatake's mind by that creature. That was the second time he had failed infiltration into the boy's mind.

* * *

When Inoichi withdrew from Kazu's mind, he gasped like he had been drowning underwater. Something that was instantly noticed by the older Hatake as the older man slumped off to the side of his brother's unconscious body.

"Well? What did you find?" He asked impatiently. The Sandaime motioned the teen to calm down and the chūnin carefully unclenched his fists.

"Inoichi, did you find any clue of another identity, split personality, or memory seal?" Inoichi shook his head.

"Yes... and no, I found something else." He said breathlessly. "I found a messed up memory seal and a messed up containment seal." Everyone in the room held an expression of complete and utter shock, but Inoichi wasn't done.

"I was attacked by a foreign chakra immediately upon entering the psychological pathways and was barely able to push it away. After that I found the memory seal. It was incomplete and was sucking the boy's earlier memories in and sealing them away. I released it and it sucked me into a bare white room with a dark gate on the far side. There if found Kazu's psychic manifestation fall to the floor clutching his head and a man behind a weakened Four Sided Elemental Seal."

"An Uzumaki Seal?!" Shikaku exclaimed, speaking for the first time. The Hokage ignored the outburst and called out to his ANBU guards.

"Daiseki! Get the head medic to do a full DNA analysis and comparison between Uzumaki Kushina, Hatake Sakumo, and allegedly claimed Hatake Kazu immediately!" He ordered.

Daiseki appeared suddenly kneeling in front of the Hokage before vanishing again with a, "Yes, Lord Hokage."

"Minato," the Sandaime said as he turned to the man. "I want you to fix the seal and restrain him until-"

"That won't be necessary." A voice cut in. Everyone turned to see Kazu getting up from his position on the floor and standing. "I won't run." Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the change in his brother's voice.

"It's you. The Other one." He said vehemently. "The Shadow creature from the chakra dreams."

The being stared harshly at Inoichi through Kazu's blatantly bicolored eyes and entered a threatening stance.

"Never try to enter my mind again. It is not a place for any of you to be in. Kazu almost went insane when my chakra merely leaked into his system and Kakashi had nightmares for three days after just sensing it. And do not under any circumstances break the seal. Do I make myself clear?" The being hissed with Kazu's mouth. "I do not belong here. My chakra is just as unstable and destructive as a tailed beast. My mind is so dark that it could blot out all of your personalities put together. Do not attempt this again or I will crush the mind of the one who enters."

Silence echoed in the room as each of the jōnin tensed, visibly preparing for any attack from the possessed boy. The Hokage spoke first.

"I will agree to your terms as long as you answer any and all questions we have after the sealing."

Again the room filled with heavy air and the being considered its options. It flicked its eyes to every single member in the room; first Inoichi, then Shikaku, then the Sandaime, and finally Kakashi.

"Not a word of my existence leaves this room." The Hokage nodded.

"Done."

The being relaxed and dropped its guard allowing Minato to jump the boy and pin him to the floor. The being didn't struggle as the Namikaze bound his hands and tied him to a nearby chair. It just sat there passively, without a word.

When the jōnin were satisfied with its state of containment, they stood back and allowed the Sandaime to address the being, staring directly.

"What are you? What is your status?"

The being kept eye contact. "I am made of chakra and a mind. I am currently trapped under an experimental Reflective Four Symbol Seal placed by a woman with the name of Etsuko. She is my host's biological mother. I am currently holding my host's body conscious as his mind recovers from the release of the memory seal." It said. "I am not using any of my chakra. I am merely switching minds with my host."

"Why do you say that you are like the bijou yet not one?"

The being answered again. "It is... Complicated to explain. Before appearing here I had a great amount of contact with bijou chakra. Upon my arrival, something changed my chakra's properties to the dark energy it now is. Once here my chakra was sealed away while my consciousness took over for my host's fading mind. As I slowly returned to my prison in this body and my host's mind took over, my mind and my chakra began to meld back together. The occasional chakra leak caused my mind to influence my host's."

The Hokage considered this and then asked. "You said that you were somewhere before here. Where was that?"

For the first time the being showed an emotion so utterly unreserved that those in the room actually thought it was possible for the being to be human. It was grief.

"We were at war. The entire world of ninja was allied together against a foe with power of the nine tailed beasts. We were fighting to save the world. Every land, every ninja of respectable status, every single one of them was working to defeat this enemy."

The being suddenly broke eye contact. "We did it. We saved the world. But the price..."

It shuddered at the memory. "All of the villages were flattened. Mountains crumbled to dust. Trees and forests blown apart. Water and land both stained red with blood. People reduced to mere mush... Everyone, and everything around me was dead."

It looked up at the Hokage again. "That is what Kazu saw. The Great Wasteland."

An uncomfortable amount of anxiety gripped Kakashi as he took in what the being had said. It had literally witnessed the end of the world and had lived through it.

"Everyone was dead." "Everything was dead." Both statements so similar, so horrifyingly close to each other, Kakashi wanted to vomit.

He heard Inoichi vomit beside him.

But the Hokage had one more question to ask.

"Who were you before you came here?"

The being stiffened but then spoke in a hushed whisper. "I was the Copy Ninja. I was ex-ANBU Ookami. I was Rokudaime Hokage."

"What was your name?" Kakashi asked.

"My name was Hatake Kakashi."

* * *

AN: Now this is where it gets interesting.


	8. Shatter

Chapter 8: Shatter

"That's impossible! Time travel is absolutely impossible! Even if a jutsu like that exists, a physical manifestation of a being from the future would never be stable enough to maintain its existence. The soul itself would be torn apart and even if it survived _ripping itself_ out of its body and grinding against the current of time, having full cognition and memories is impossible!" The Hokage burst. "Do you really expect me to believe that you were able to do something that even the Nidaime Hokage was incapable of doing?"

"Well, for one thing it isn't impossible." It said, ignoring the budding protests and continuing. "With the correct sealing formula, the body and soul of a person can literally slip through the fabric of reality and into a different one. One that can absolutely have a timeline that is malleable enough to adapt to the sudden existence of an element from outside its own reality."

Everyone stared at the thing possessing Kazu's body like he was insane.

"Now then," The thing continued. "We can proceed."

"First things first, Kakashi" It said.

Kakashi looked up at it, slightly uncomfortable with seeing someone else behind his brother's eyes. He couldn't help but feel slightly afraid of the creature that it was. The creature that he would become.

"I am not you." It said. Kakashi flinched visibly at its perception. "And you are not like me. I have the guilt of nine of my loved ones deaths staining my hands and I was stripped of my humanity because I made too many stupid decisions. The deaths of every single person I care about has been revisited over a thousand times. In my old life, nightmares ate away at my psyche until I felt like I had no reason to go on living." It looked directly into his eyes and said seriously, "You are not that person, so don't compare yourself to me."

It turned away from Kakashi when It finished and addressed the Hokage.

"While I was inactive and simply sitting around in my metal cage, I looked over the situations that I had about my miraculous arrival here." It said. "I awoke in a completely dead world that held no chakra in it at all. This place is The Great Wasteland I mentioned earlier." It explained. "A sealing technique of that size and complexity had to be condensed as much as it could to be able to maintain stability. A rip in the dimensional timespace is extremely hard to control and a hell of a lot of chakra to activate. It must also have had a large range but was focused instead so that only the caster should make it through the wormhole."

It tensed slightly against the chains but made no other sudden movements for the moment. "However, seeing as I am still here, I figured that my soul somehow sucked into the jutsu when it was cast, and had to compensate for it by quickly enforcing it and sending to a weak point between the folds. My being naturally magnetized to the nearby fading mind of Kazu, who was in Kiri at the time seeing his mother bleed out at is fingertips."

It looked at Kakashi again and said, "In my past, Kazu didn't exist. In this world though, he does. This means that Kazu either died before he reached Konoha in my past or he never was born in the first place. In the case of the first theory, my existance became bound to Kazu's and it saved him from an early death. This also means that the person that I would have become can no longer exist. In the second, he isn't really related to you at all and only exists because the dimenstional fabric patched itself up incompletely. This would mean that as long as Kazu continues to be alive, this dimension is in danger of colapsing on itself."

The thriteen year old clenched his fists at the thought of having to kill his brother to make sure that the rest of the world wouldn't destroy itself but he could not see the need for it. There was something missing.

"You're not telling us everything." He accused.

"I wasn't finished yet. Be patient." The thing drawled. "As I was saying, I have already figured out that case two is not something you need to worry about. Kazu had a mother who was biologically related to him, as I mentioned earlier when I said that she sealed me into here.

"What troubles me though," It continued. "Is not the issue of my existance but the fact that Kazu's mother figured out that I even existed at all.

"Was there anything that happened around the smaller nations near Kiri that would be comparable to a chakra explosion?" It asked the Hokage.

It was Shikaku that answered though. "Yes, there were reports of a large explosion in the Land of Waves. Rumors of a dual eyed wolf demon with a scar over its red left eye going on a rampage with its dark chakra cloak surrounding a silver pelt. We actually sent spies over into the territory upon hearing them, but we never found anything to prove its existance. But that was at the beginning of the war, about four years ago."

"My arrival is kind of a hazy blur but I do remember being sealed up in Kazu. The process was excruciating considering I was being ripped up and rearranged. I never was able to figure out why she sealed me in Kazu other than to contain me."

"So Kazu has no idea that you're sealed up inside his gut?" Kakashi asked suspiciously.

"Well he knows now, since the idiot interrogator decided to break into Kazu's mind and force a meeting between the two of us, yes he does. That shouldn't matter too much as I will probably just sit back and let the kid do whatever he wants when he-" The thing abruptly cut itself off and then stated in surprise. "He's awake. Just a second, I'll switch places."

Everyone waited as the thing closed Kazu's eyes in concentration. Several seconds passed by before it suddenly began thrashing in its bindings.

"Minato-san! Redo the seal!" It said in a panic. "He's trying to break the seal!"

* * *

Now Kazu knew why Kikuto was sealed up in his belly.

His mother had taught him many things. She showed him how to look after himself, use his nose to find things, how seals worked, how to run and hide from enemies... and ultimately how to control the White Chakra.

Property wise, his White Chakra was the complete opposite of the Dark Chakra that Kazu had felt Kikuto had and was the perfect tool to neutralize it. The immense amount of damage that the Dark Chakra could do to the body was something only a person with White Chakra could avoid.

Not only that, but the seal that she had placed on his... partner, was imperfect for this very reason. As the flow of chakra leaked slightly into his system it would prepare him for his next task.

The boy awoke to finde himself lying on a field of white chrysanthemum flowers. Kazu recalled what his mother had told him.

* * *

_"Kazu," she called him._

_"Kaa-chan!" He remembered calling out. "Are you gonna teach me how to do that cool iryo-ninjutsu you do? You said you would! You said that when I finally mastered how to do that light thingy that you would teach me!"_

_"Calm down for a second, little one. I have a story to tell you first."_

_"What kind of story Kaa-chan?"_

_She laughed as she unbraided her bright red hair. "One about an old prophesy."_

_"Really Kaa-chan? But I wanna learn the jutsu now!" He had whined._

_"Just listen."_

_"Okay..." He said a little disappointed._

_"There once was an old lady who could see the future. She foresaw many things, like when the next Bijou attack would be or the next great natural disastar. H__owever this time was different. This time she saw a man with silver hair shrouded in darkness that was not his own. He turned into a wolf and howled a lonely howl to a red moon. Then two little boys, who also had silver hair, ran up to it and placed their hands on him and the darkness around him turned into beautiful white light. The light shattered the red moon and revealed a dark shadow."_

_"Scary..." He observed. "How does it end?"_

_"The shadow escapes and tries to drown the world in darkness. But the two boys and the man go out to fight him. The prophesy was never finished."_

_"Aww..."_

_"I'm telling you this, little one, for a reason."_

_"Is it because I can use the light chakra Kaa-chan?"_

_"Yes," She said. "I believe you will be the one to fight a darkness like the shadow when you are older. If you ever find darkness like that, use your light to save the person it surrounds. That way you can become stronger and defeat that darkness."_

_"I thought it was just a story Kaa-chan."_

_"You are part of this story."_

_"But I don't understand Kaa-chan."_

_"You will."_

* * *

His mother intrusted him with the task of preventing darkness from ever harming the world and it would take every bit of his effort to be able to pull it off. She sealed Kikuto into him because he was trapped in darkness. Kikuto would never be able to get rid of that darkness by himself. Kazu had to surround him in his light to be able to even stand a chance at converting the darkness to light.

He pushed himself up onto his feet and looked at the flowers around him. They were all filled with a little bit of White Chakra and the things were _everywhere_ and went on as far as the eye could see. He silently thanked his mother again for her sealing abilities and how she thought far enough ahead to make sure to have a little bit of White Chakra sealed away every day, every hour, until it was enough to purge the darkness that she knew he had to get rid of.

He began walking forward, step by step. Slowly at first he began walking steadily towards the seal. Then he began going faster, taking his pace from trudging to walking, from walking to jogging, from jogging to running, and from running to sprinting. Faster and faster and scattering the numerous white petals everywhere.

Kazu began summoning his chakra to his hands and turning it into the White Chakra that he was taught how to control. He concentrated hard and tried to make it as big as he could. It only ended up being the size of a small fist, but he charged up to the seal and pushed the chakra into it.

It shook violently.

Kazu tried again. This time he took even less time than before and he pushed it into the cage again.

It cracked slightly.

He tried again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

The seal began to crack off in large pieces. They broke off from the main structure and dissolved into nothingness. Each time more of the seal broke and the larger Kazu's sphere became until it was as large as his head.

_Crack. Crack. Crack._

Louder and louder the seal began crumbling to pieces. Then finally, Kazu hit a small piece of paper at the center of the cage and the entire thing cracked white. Kazu stepped back quickly and was able to retreat into the chrysanthemum fields just before the seal shattered into a million pieces.

The dark chakra burst from its doors in a huge onslaught of energy. It rushed at Kazu like a demon.

* * *

Kakashi heard his brother, his actual brother not that thing inside him, scream as dark chakra burst from his body. Then everything was happening at once.

Minato-sensei went rapidly through hand signs.

Shikaku grabbed Inoichi and took shelter behind the Sandaime who was preparing some kind of Doton.

And Kakashi felt his body reach out and grab onto his brother's writhing body.

* * *

Kazu regrets breaking the seal as he soon found the raging torrent of dark energy only being suppressed because of the thousands of petals that sent themselves to it. He pushed his chakra towards the massive mass of shadow and felt the drain quickly becoming too much for him to handle.

The energy advanced closer and closer until it touched Kazu's hands.

He screamed in pain.

* * *

Kakashi immediately felt the drain on his chakra when he touched him. He pushed his chakra into his brother's body, somehow hoping that it would calm the dark chakra.

It was sucking it out faster than he anticipated though and by the time Kakashi was able to collect his thoughts enough to try and let go...

He discovered that he couldn't.

* * *

Out of nowhere, more White Chakra slammed into the mass of darkness and the energy began turning into White Chakra too. Kazu pushed the last bit of chakra he had into the mass and a burst a light threw him backwards.

* * *

Light exploded between the two brothers and blinded those still within the office.

When Kakashi was finally able to see again, he got the shock of his life.

There was _another_ silver haired man in the room with them.

Stark naked and without a mask he gazed upon the likeness of his father.

* * *

AN: So sorry for the late update. I hope this makes up for it somewhat.


	9. Not a chapter

AN: I have received a number of anonymous reviews that have pointed out some flaws in my writing to I am actually going to attempt to rewrite this story both because of them and because I have seen the problems even as I write the next chapter. Within the next few weeks, I'd like anyone and everyone to either review telling about any flaws within the chapters or PM me. I don't really care whether or not the responses are harsh or not but please do not be biased with answers. I would also like to note that I am looking for someone to beta read my chapters. PM me if you are interested. Thanks for the support.

Here's the name of the revision: From Red to White

its up now for everyone to enjoy.

Don't forget to review.

Added AN: I have been asked about keeping the story up and my answer is yes. This story will stay up and will be updated every once in a while. Intervals will be irregular though, since it is not my main focus now. I hope everyone still enjoys my writing!

-~Butterscreen


End file.
